Category Archives: Technology

Last Friday hubby and I went to the Google Glass event in London. I wasn’t really sure what to expect because I didn’t know a great deal about them. I’ve read about them but they don’t seem like the kind of thing that I’d normally be interested. I’m not a complete technophobe but I’m not a gadget freak either. I’ll leave that to hubby and his mate (you know who you are!)!

The canalBig screen and deckchairs to watch the tennis

The event was held in some super-cool location near Granary Square. Kings Cross area used to be less than salubrious but I have to say I’m impressed! I’ll have to go back there to linger at some point. It is a nice location and feels very trendy.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the Google Event. We got there about 6pm and there were no queues which surprised me. We had to go in and register, sign some kind of form (I forget what it was, I guess I should retain this information – perhaps that is something that Glass can help me with?) and then wait to be admitted into what seemed to be an old warehouse – albeit a very cool old warehouse!

While we were queuing a very friendly young lady came up, chatted to us and tried to show us a demo about Glass but unfortunately her tablet wasn’t working. We were offered tiny, delicate rolls and toasted marshmallows which to me, tasted like honeycomb and had the texture of tofu – bleurgh! The looked impressive though! Everybody kept telling us about the carrots which were actually cake – really good cake at that…unfortunately I couldn’t track down the carrot lady!

When we were admitted we were giving an induction into the glasses which you definitely needed. It is weird but cool at the same time. I wear quite big framed glasses and my eyes aren’t good enough to see the words on the Glass screen without my current glasses. Hubby had the good sense to wear contacts.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. They look cool but obvious. Hubby was hoping for something a bit more discreet and I think I’m with him on that. It kinda looks like a slimline version of Jody’s visor from Star Trek and I also don’t know if I like the idea of constantly being connected like that. It’s bad enough now if you go out and people are plugged into their mobile phones. Can you imagine what it’ll be like if people are plugged in through their glasses?

Modelling the glasses

That said, the technology is very cool. I particularly liked the star gazing app (sorry I’m an apple user…is it still ‘app’ if you are using a Google product?). You activate the glasses and tell them to ‘explore the stars’ then you look up and there is a star map on your glasses. Very, very, very cool! Also, if you look at the star for long enough the glasses tell you facts about the star. Fabulous!

I also loved the app that identified music. Not only did it identify the song, it displayed the lyrics so you could follow it! Love it!

The language app is interesting. It is great technology and the way Glass translates is impressive. You look at the text you want translated and then Glass overlays the original text with the translation. but I found it a bit clunky. You have to know what language you are looking at and tell Glass to translate from Spanish to English or Italian to English for example. I don’t know if it is possible but it would be great if you could just look at the text and it identified it. What if you don’t know what language you are looking at but still need a translate? I don’t think (from what I saw yesterday) that Glass could help with that.

I left the stargazing station feeling like I wanted a pair but at £1000 a pair I think that’s a long way down my wishlist!